


Vestiges of Home

by Isaac_A_Drake



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online, Elder Scrolls Series - Greg Keyes
Genre: Adventure, Aldmeri Dominion, Altmer (Elder Scrolls), Autism Spectrum, Autistic OC, Ayleids (Elder Scrolls), Elder Scrolls Lore, Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset, F/M, Fantasy, Gen, MMORPGs, Self-Insert, Swords & Sorcery, Written by an Author on the Spectrum Even, gamer - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24937468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isaac_A_Drake/pseuds/Isaac_A_Drake
Summary: When you get reincarnated in a new universe in a Gamer-style deal you want a system you can break and make yourself a god in. What you don't want is an MMO-system balanced to scale with you. But that's what I got, ESO not Oblivion. It's a bit of a raw deal but I'm sure I can make it work.
Relationships: OC/OC
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. Game Over-ish

**Author's Note:**

> Just something fun to play around with while I have downtime at work. Don't take it seriously y'all. Plus my wife got interested in the concept of some of these self-insert style deals when I read some of my other stories to her.
> 
> Though there are some lore concepts I want to play with to see where I want to take similar (but not the same) concepts in Secret Fire.
> 
> This chapter does in fact purposefully have this tone.

Two bullets in the lung and I did not expect to wake up, ever. As an atheist that flirted with paganism as more of an ancestor worship-style deal I was pretty sure it was going to be oblivion after I died.

Not Oblivion with a capital, I thought sardonically as I appeared to be starting at a slightly modified character creation screen for the Elder Scrolls Online.

So the afterlife was going to be some weird sort of multiverse resurrection deal, possibly with a Gamer aspect.

And I was going to have to deal with an MMO-version of it too, that did not excite me.

Because MMORPGs were made to be balanced, oh sure you still might be pretty godly compared to ally and neutral NPCs, but the mobs could always kill you. Especially after One Tamriel if you really pushed yourself into a dumb situation.

So, deciding to stop ignoring the pink elephant in the room I focused my will upon the creation screen and pulled my attention over to the first tab, Races.

Oddly enough the name screen was filled just with a disclaimer saying "Name is Generated by Culture".

My first gut instinct was Breton, the magical human race, my default my go to with any Elder Scrolls title. The manmer.

But I held myself back, I had to think about this logically if this was my one and my only second chance.

Succeeding in an MMO was all about build optimization. And sure Bretons made some pretty badass magicka builds, but were they necessarily optimal? If I had customization options like a normal Elder Scrolls game I could do my battlemage/spellsword thing and be a pretty cool Covenant Knight or something.

Here in the MMO version though? If I wasn't given the customization options a hybrid build could spell death. Cause who knew if I would get the full Vestige package of Soul Gem and Wayshrine resurrection? Though admittedly if I didn't get resurrection I would probably get customization.

No, my best bet was to plan for the worst in this universe. Assume I need both optimization and to not die. And that it will be limited to ESO customization levels.

Not die, that probably meant I should pick a longer-lived race. Which meant Dunmer, Altmer, or Bosmer.

Bosmer were immediately out because I loved magicka builds and they were the Stamina DPS elves. Also I was not the biggest fan of heavy meat in life, and I would probably want to kill myself without carbs.

Dunmer were a strong choice, the Ebonheart Pact was strong, fun, and well written.

But also if I was going to be living an extended life maybe I should not pick the racist slavers with the false-gods who were going to go crazy in the next age. Plus, even though my main in ESO in life had been a Dunmer Magicka DPS Dragonknight, the thing that had put him over the top had been vampirism combined with burning immunity.

And I did not want to be in any way shape or form tied to Molag Bal in this universe. Disgusting rapist scum.

Hell, even Meridia was not as good of an ally as in previous incarnations, I might want to stay as far from the Daedra as possible. She really screwed Darien, the poor guy.

So that left me with Altmer of the long-lived races. Racist but not slavers. Elitists but not yet the Thalmor bent on world domination or destruction.

Oh hey, I realized, I could maybe make enough of a difference to have them prepared for the Oblivion Crisis...no wait that might just make the weird semi-Dragonbreak war with Tiber Septim all the more deadly to them and their culture.

But perhaps allying with the Direnni or the Psijic Order, yes they had half-decent ties to the Isles at this point, especially if he pushed through the Summerset expansion quests. Then he could maybe set the traps in place generations ahead to be sprung upon the Thalmor.

So yes, I supposed I was going with what was likely my second least-favorite non-beast race. Because optimization and not wanting to die again any time soon.

Well the Dominion was my least played faction so hopefully it would give me some surprises.

So focusing my will in on the selection I made my choice and...instead of moving over to the next tab I was given a sub-race option, that was new and different.

Looking closely it looked like I had Pureblood and Impureblood, the pure option would supplement my racial bonuses with more of the same. I checked out what Impure would offer me.

The options were Ayleid, Bosmer, Dunmer, Direnni-mixed, and even Moarmer. I immediately discounted Bosmer and looked at the others. Dunmer gave rather mild fire-resistance and a more tanned look, Direnni was similar to Pureblood with lower numbers and said something about family relationships and inheritance which was fascinating, Moarmer was as sailing skill boost (and hey look that means more skills than the basic ones in the MMO, things were looking up), and Ayleid was a boost to Shock-magic, something vague about my family, and a 'blood feud with the Cyrods'.

Okay, so obviously the correct choice here is Direnni, because allies are pretty great.

But, the sailing thing and these sub-races mean there's a lot more going on than straight up happens in the MMO.

And Ayleids have some pretty cool architecture and there's only two Ayleids I know of that were alive anywhere near this time period. A really cool scholar and a really cool fighter and king. Plus Shock-magic is awesome and a branch of Ayleids supposedly developed the foundational school for it so that made sense. Plus those Welkynd Stone shock traps all over in Oblivion.

So being related to one of those two Ayleids in particular was rather enticing. Especially as the former had relationships with the Direnni, Psijics, and Mages Guild; and the latter was someone I could likely actually meet.

And in a time period where the entirety of Cyrodiil was one big battleground free-for-all perhaps I could even finagle my way into being Emperor and setting up some cosmopolitan and inclusive society and just get Tiber Septim to marry into the family when he shows up for Dragonblood and Amulet purposes?

And now I was the one plotting world domination when five...probably no concept of time here...thoughts? Five thoughts ago I was criticizing the Thalmor and was worrying about screwing up the world by making Tiber Septim's conquest too difficult.

Hmm, one thing at a time, I'll put a pin into world conquest until I see what's going on with my ability to impact the outcome of the different plots.

If Destiny with a capital D is gonna be hardlining me I'll back off the idea entirely.

And thus I made my choice and was moved finally over to the next tab, Class.

Which was about what I expected, even including the expansion classes which was nice though only Warden was of any interest there.

However, a feature just below would have made me grin if I were corporeal, Custom Class.

I metaphorically jumped on that option, opening up...more than I expected but less than I hoped for.

Essentially it boiled down to me being able to pick any three skill lines from any mix of the classes. Not terrible but not the kind of customization one might hope for.

With the Ayleid-descendant Shock-bonus I of course immediately picked Storm Calling from the Sorcerer class. Very useful with area of effect spells and mobility.

Now my primary focus was not dying again any time soon, so I had a couple of options in regards to that. Fortification and defense buffs or healing and sustain. Or even both, both is always a nice option.

Warden, Templar, and just getting good with Light Armor or the Restoration Staff all provided me with good variations of those.

Oh, I mused, Warden and Sorcerer also have their 'pet'-trees. I decided I didn't really want to do Daedric stuff so the Warden pet-tree was a solid option that offered some self-healing and crowd control options. Hopefully the newer feature allowing alternate skins for each race for the animals summoned was implemented.

I added the Warden's Animal Companions skill tree as my second choice.

Honestly with Dive I had a great spammable and good AoE off of Storm Calling, so what to do with my final choice was quite the conundrum. It was looking like I was going to be structuring myself as an Altmer who honored their Ayleid 'Wild Elf' roots by feeling connected to Jephre, who was important to the Aedric Ayleids who got pushed out by their Daedric-worshipping siblings in some civil war before Alessia's Rebellion. Yes, styling myself as honoring them would definitely buy me some credibility in the Dominion. I was fairly certain the reason why the Ayleids had been largely left alone to deal with that rebellion had been because of the dominant party's Daedric leanings.

So if I wanted I could just take the damage shield giving skill I get out of Light Armor and have that covered, that would be fine. I didn't necessarily need Dragon Knight defensive buff skills with that, but on the same end I did not actually really need any group healing skills if I just wanted to level a Restoration Staff as a backup weapon.

Or I could double down on the Jephre stuff and take Green Balance out of the Warden tree and have both self-sustain and group healing as well as some mild crowd control.

Dark Magic was also a great skill tree if I wanted crowd control and a single really good sustain skill in Dark Exchange. However the Daedric focus of that tree made me a little anxious.

Perhaps I could spread things out even further across class-lines however? Grab Restoring Light from the Templar tree. Sure it was heavily healing focused but Rune Focus could also grant major levels of resistance. Would I be too spread out on my theme however? Especially since Stendarr was not a typical Divine of worship for any elves. Though Arkay, or Xarses as the elves knew him, and Auriel both had some heavy crossover into the anti-undead and light domains.

Yes, picking Restoring Light would also distance me from the Ayleid tribes that had bred into the Bosmer in the past few centuries and who would still be fresh in the minds of some older Altmer.

Thus I finalized my selection and was granted with an interesting disclaimer, it stated that these were simply the fields and skills I would be most talented in and it was possible to learn others the 'real way'.

Unsure if that was the universe getting saucy with me or the interface working off of my own mental wonderings.

The next page allowed me to pick my appearance which was nice. I kept myself on the thin side with some wiry muscle made for running or swimming. As an Altmer I stood quite a bit taller than the five foot eight I had been in my first life, a hair under six and a half feet was a nice boost.

The Ayleid heritage left me duskier on the golden-skinned side of the spectrum. I got more options on body markings than in the normal game, giving myself a hybrid tattoo of Jephre inspired ivy and vines wrapping around a symbol of Auriel on my chest and Xarses's symbol on my back in a deep copper coloring.

I went with a very traditional high cheekbone and angular face to offset my darker than Altmer-typical skin tone, thinking to balance out any judgement I might receive for my Impureblood status.

I gave myself the Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man style facial hair as it was really the only beard-style that wasn't weird fantasy stuff that looked hard to keep up.

Altmer hair color was also pretty weird and their texture was mostly flat and straight and not curly, so I was stuck going with an admittedly refined pony-tail and dual-Padawan braids style. Not the worst option, I picked silver as it looked a lot more dignified than some of the odder almost metallic browns and earth tones.

Forest green eyes to further cement the Ayleid descendant backstory and I was ready to go.

Or so I thought.

'Achievement Bonuses' popped up as a surprise.

"Umm...what?" A thought so loud it almost felt verba-it was verbal. I was now standing in front of the next set of selections in the body I had created.

"Oh...hmm…" I tested my limbs out, did a little jig, and promptly fell on my ass and had to get up.

"And the voice is strange, too!" I said out loud, I had that almost slimy-smooth voice of many elves in many types of fiction.

I wasn't sure I liked it. But too late now, I had done the dumb thing and ignored the voice box again like I always do in character creation.

So instead I focused on an...interesting list of my lifetime accomplishments.

Heroic Death, obviously from the way I died, my wife had had some...rather obsessed fans and it hadn't ended well for me.

Amateur Antiquarian, well with the Bachelor's I would argue more than Amateur but sure, if the afterlife is going to judge me I won't bitch too much.

Married, well that's an obvious one.

Amateur Entertainer, oh come on the minor got me the same as the major? Didn't feel fair.

Spectrum Savant, I was going to need to take a closer look, it likely meant I'd have my autism and ADHD in this universe too so that I didn't feel like I was thinking in a totally alien manner about things.

It's a Dead Language for a Reason, showed up twice so that was likely making fun of me for learning Latin and then to read Maya Script later on in life instead of something useful. Like the Spanish or German that had dropped my GPAs hard.

Amateur Horsemanship, again a little mad it considered all the hours I had put into some of these skills as Amateur, but as I clicked into the skill to read it I saw that these achievements were where I was getting a lot of starting skills in skills that did not typically exist in the game. It looked like the mount statistics were being merged and then split between a Riding skill and the stats of the mount themselves.

Everything else was also basic skills I had learned in life that would be applicable in game. Writing, Bookkeeping, and Cartography, just to name a few of the more useful ones. My ability to cook and to make Neolithic tools and weapons apparently netted me a starting level of 10 in both Provisioning and Woodworking so that was pretty exciting.

The final achievement was how I knew the universe was both rewarding me and using me for entertainment though.

"Soulmate: When your lover from your past life dies, if they never truly love another again they will be reborn here as well! Good luck figuring out if that ever happens and when it will happen in the local timestream!"

"Xarses's warty ass!" I screamed angrily as I slammed a fist into the "Next" button.

This got me a prompt saying "Dyrian Fyrre, do you wish to skip the Tutorial Prologue?"


	2. Marooned? How Original

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I will say that pet builds (though the Warden Animal Companion skill line has enough good non-pet skills that it gets used) are good for Solo content in ESO in particular, but I did not do a good enough job of describing that concern about if he would consistently be solo or not and will go back to do some minor insertion edits to fix that oversight.  
> Full stats at the end of next chapter. And likely to update every level up chapter from there.

“Tooltip: Prologue in this instance will be the first thirty-five years of life, prior to the beginning of the Banners War, you will have your prior years procedurally generated based on baseline personality and awaken with those memories just prior to the beginning of the main quest,”.

Well that explained that, the problem was I didn’t want to redo childhood but I also kind of would have wanted to do the decade leading up to the main story quest because that would have allowed me to level, possibly power-level, early on and have a handle for the weird hybrid systems there seemed to be going on here. 

But I really really didn’t want to do infancy. 

Being an autistic child was very confusing the first time, and being one with memories of a prior life could maybe even get me killed here. Especially when Daedric interference, lies, deceit, and possession were all very real things in this universe.

With a sigh I finalized the choice to skip my prologue. 

I’d never had a migraine in my first life.

But as I awoke gasping through dry and dehydrated lips with a vicious pounding in my skull, not helped at all by the morning sun relentlessly shining down upon my body.

Groggily I glanced around and saw that I was washed up on a beach. A beach...on Auridon hopefully a rush of memories supplied.

Ah yes, I was Dyrian Fyrre, grandson of scholar and mage Tjurhane Fyrre, one of the last pureblooded Ayleids. He had married an Altmer woman and their son, my deceased father Mithllon Fyrre had in turn married a Direnni woman of one of the sub-branches of that illustrious house. This had in turn led to me being raised by the Direnni after my parents had perished, uggh an orphan plot how cliche, but this was where I had met the future queen of the Aldmeri Dominion, Ayrenn. We’d become friendly rivals before she took off on her more rambunctious adventures and I...ah the achievement from the Bachelor’s Degree had led to my character being allowed to run off and join the Psijic Order, interesting. 

And there was an odd spell I had developed at an early age that created a misty hovering numerical representation of my physical and mystical power. Obviously an in-universe way to represent status menus. 

I used my merged memories to gather some magicka to a hand and waved it in front of my face, “Identity: Status!” 

A hazy screen of magicka hovered in front of my face, slowly congealing into something solid enough to read.

Dyrian Fyrre, Level 3 Green Knight

Below that were the bars saying how I had allocated my resource points each level. It appeared I had put a point into health and two into magicka. Makes sense, I had been setting myself up to be very solid in solo content and also have group support ability. 

“Skills!” My command swapped over to another screen. 

I saw that I had the first skill in each of the lines I had selected and also got a pleasant surprise that my back story had placed me at rank two in the Psijic Order, starting me off with See the Unseen and Time Stop, as well as being able to invest in the Clairvoyance passive later. 

Not that the Psijic Order skill line was really all that great. Honestly, the Mages Guild had a better passive slotted ability in Magelight and a better Ultimate in Meteor. 

But if I could hit the next rank I’d get the Imbue Weapon skill, which would once I morphed it into the Magicka-based Elemental Weapon allow me to empower my light attacks, extremely spammable and not totally useless. And perhaps Time Stop would be better in ‘real life’ than in the game after they patched the Magicka cost to be higher? 

What really surprised me is that I had both Destruction Staff and Dual-Wielding as weapon skill lines. This obviously reflected the Direnni and Altmer warriors as premier spellswords. Hopefully there was some kind of Bound Weapon or Sword and Staff thing I could unlock with whatever strange expanded system I was working within. 

Of course the real problem facing me at the immediate moment was that my Health and Stamina were both disastrously low, and my Magicka wasn’t near topped off either. 

Groaning as I full stood I funneled Restoration energies into my hands and held them aloft, allowing the golden glow of Rushed Ceremony to cascade down my body, healing the scrapes and bruises I had accumulated in…

“Auriel’s arse!” My somewhat weedier than I desired Altmer voice echoed out as the memories I had been processing caught up with the present day. I had been on a ship for the city of Vulkhel Guard on Auridon from Balfiera as my friend, the now queen, Ayrenn had called for my aid in the war and her councils as she felt she could not trust those around her.

Which made sense, as I knew she was likely days away from an assassination attempt by one of her guard captains. Literally the only details I remembered from the Dominion questlines were the starting city and the prologue areas. 

Some more memories outside of the shipwreck from a freak storm the previous night surfaced and as I greened I shoved them away. 

Looking around I saw that all I had to fight with were my fists, my spells, and the tattered rags of what had previously been very nice robes. 

Luckily there did not appear to be much to fight in my immediate vicinity. Now I simply had to figure out how on Ear-erm Nirn to get to Auridon from this beach.

If I was remembering where my ship had been correctly I should at least be on the proper island. 

And if I were on the proper island Vukhel Guard should be on the southern tip. Of course there was always the chance Firsthold was closer, but glancing up at the sun I decided the south was my direction.

Trudging southward down the beach I kept my eyes peeled for any flotsam and jetsam that may be useful for me to scavenge. 

I did not find much, while I could have been shoveling little ingredients and crafting materials that I did come across into a bag, I did not have one on me at this moment. I was well and truly marooned until I made my way to the next settlement. 

A piece of driftwood made for a half decent walking staff, and possibly something okay to hit things with, but that was all I found in the debris strewn beach I had washed up on. 

Until I heard a clicking and gurgling behind me. 

“Oh, Sithis’s spit...of course this is the first fight,” With a heavy sigh I turned around and faced two mudcrabs which had snuck up upon me in my exhausted distraction. 

Luckily the skittering crustaceans had popped out of the sand a solid ten meters off and gave me time to pull up my merged magical knowledge for a useful spell with the skills I had.

Dive, from the Animal Companions skill line, was completely out of the question at the moment. Because there was a hidden mechanic to access the Clever Craft-style spells of the Warden’s two nature skill lines. Jephre and Kynareth both held heavy sway over those spell lines and Wardens apparently trapped the soul of a creature they themselves hunted honorably or something and used those trapped souls as a kind of blueprint for a Conjuration framework for the Animal Companions skill line. 

I was going to have to do that soon. Any avian apparently works with Dive, so I could catch a seagull later after I came across an empty soul gem. 

And once I learned it anything burrowing would work for the Scorch line, though it would only deserve the name if you were using Shalks. Pity I didn’t have any soul gems on me, I could save a mudcrab for then. 

So the old early-level Storm Calling staple of Mage’s Fury took the go. 

Holding my walking stick to the sky I channeled Magicka up and through it and as I released a bolt of lightning flew down and slammed into one of the mudcrabs, doing a lot of damage and electrifying it. 

Without missing a beat I dashed forward and slammed my stick down onto its head, finishing it off and causing the leftover electricity to leap over to damage the other nearby crab as the spell dictated.

“Ha! Take that you clawed cretin!” Hmm I would have to work on the smack talk, the impulses from my skipped prologue years were decidedly medieval and well...not extremely witty.

Luckily some of the Direnni spellsword training had involved some level of tumbling or acrobatics as muscle memory took over and I executed a speedy backwards roll to avoid the angry claws of the remaining crab. 

As I popped up from my tucked posture I immediately lashed out with the walking stick, smacking the crab twice before it could even consider attempting a riposte.

Riposte, it’s a freaking crab, I inwardly chastised the part of my mind that was overly formal and medieval. 

That second whack had killed the creature, I didn’t feel as if I had leveled up and a quick check of the screen showed that my experience bar had barely crept upwards at all. 

That made sense, if I’d been properly armed that would have been a joke. 

As I continued on down the beach I saw in the distance a functional row boat pulled up onto the beach and after a moment of consideration decided that on Auridon I should be safe from anything that wasn’t Veiled Inheritance or a Covenant invasion party, and a single row boat did not fit the bill for either of those two. 

It turns out I was very very incorrect about this assessment.

I agonized to myself over picking my least played alliance as three Maormer appeared from around a nearby tide pool and pointed and shouted at me. 

Apparently a location or side-quest in Auridon did in fact involve the Maormer. I was simply more used to thinking about them in regards to the prologue island for the Dominion. 

“Another survivor, eh?” One of the blue-green tinged elves snarled out at me. 

“Survivor of what, sir? I am just a poor hobo, spare a coin for the poor?” Ah see, pull my previous life’s impulses to the fore and I can be funny, I even turned my weedy and smarmy voice into something akin to a Monty Python beggar. 

They all stared at me in dumbfounded silence for a moment, before one replied. 

“That’s it, kill him!” The, oh that’s a female Maormer, next to the first one snarled out.

But they’d given me all the time I needed to start my channeling. 

“Tempus Glacius!” Apparently Time Stop needed a mnemonic trigger, so with Earth-brain in charge at the moment I brutalized some Latin. 

Time Stop slowed ‘time’ in the zone of effect for the three seconds you were channeling the spell and then finished off with stunning anyone in that zone by the end of the channel.

I was backpedalling the entire three seconds. I did not have a weapon. They had swords. I had discovered in my final moments of my initial life that blood was best kept inside your body. 

As they grabbed their heads in disorientation I waved my driftwood stick around to bring another Mage’s Fury down upon the group, only this time I simply brought a second spell down upon them just as the stun was ending. 

The cooldown had been close but the second lightning strike hit and killed the first Maormer that had spoken to me and triggered the splash damage from his death. 

Unfortunately the other two were sprinting towards me through the pain of the electricity.

“Uh oh,” was all I had time to let out before I needed to bring my stick up in defense. Luckily the woman was faster than the man so I did not have to deal with them simultaneously for a few precious moments.

I caught her sabre on my stick, the metal blade actually sliced halfway through the haft and stuck, using this opportunity I twisted the stick around to wrench her wrist a little and gave her a solid kick in the stomach.

I’m not sure if I was lucky or if my body was stronger than I assumed, but she lost her wind and her weapon, falling backwards into the sand.

I leapt behind a small dune and rolled with the blade and stick still in my grasp. 

The other Maormer pirate had reached her and helped her up by the time I popped up and slammed the stick into a boulder shattering it and freeing the blade, which I picked up with a grin. 

“Yeah, not so confident now, are you?” I taunted, waving the sabre around, while not exactly expertly at the very least it was competently. 

Growling the woman pulled a dagger out and both lunged at me once more, in tandem this time.

Rethinking my choice to taunt a couple of pirates I met the sabre of the man with my own and attempted to twist the both of us around to put him in the way of the woman.

I was partially successful, her dagger grazed my side and we all went down in a tumble of limbs. 

“Ow! Baldak, that was me!” 

“Gerrof!” 

And other assorted groans and yells escaped our frantic tussle. Both longer blades were sent scattering out into the dunes and all three of us attempted to avoid whoevers hand was wielding the dagger at any given moment. 

Finally after some decidedly unfair wrestling I was flat on my back with one hand holding the wrist with the dagger, now in the hands of the male Maormer, at bay and the other gripped around the woman’s neck. Both of their bodies pressing down into me. 

“Buy me a drink first, guys!” I quipped, but that once more only made them try to kill me harder.

A grin crossed my face as the dagger inched closer to my throat.

“I always wanted to do this,” I mentioned, acting as if I had not a care in the world as I gathered Magicka to send up into the air for one very dangerous Mage’s Fury. 

“Shazam!” I cried out and the bolt from the blue shot down and slammed into the man, killing him outright and as entangled as we all were shocking both myself and the woman, who luckily had taken more damage from both my strike earlier and the present scuffle. 

She died rather indignantly in my arms and I similarly twitched indignantly.

I shoved the corpses off of myself, groaning, and lay there for a few moments regaining some Magicka for another Rushed Ceremony.

Slightly healed I finally climbed to my feet and did what any reasonable adventurer would do, looted the corpses.

Unfortunately all I really got out of the deal was the statistically equivalent of an iron sword and an iron dagger. 

But, at least I was armed.


	3. Vulkhel En Garde

Another few hours luckily saw me trudging my way into Vulkhel Guard by way of the main entrance to the city. 

A guard, some random NPC, stopped me, “Halt, vagrant! What business do you have in the city?”

I took a deep breath both to stop myself from responding in frustration and to allow my in-universe experience to take over.

“Vagrant? You fool. I am Dyrian Fyrre of the Direnni and Psijic Order, summoned by Queen Ayrenn herself! That foul storm early this morning shattered my ship and I have had to trudge here from some Auriel forsaken beach and slay Maormer, whom should never have had a beach head here, so why do you not go fetch me your superior’s superior and I can head up to the palace!” 

That was a command, not a question. 

Visibly shaken the guard ran off and murmurs began to ripple out from the merchants nearby my position at the gate.

Good, my Altmer upbringing whispered in my mind, let them talk. They should be talking about me and they certainly would be by the time I was done here.

I was likely going to have to do that despicably dumb Ensuring Security quest. But, I decided, it would be well worth it to befriend Razum-dar. Truly the only light in this Divines-forsaken questline.

And there she was, I gritted my teeth as Watch Captain Astanya strutted up to me. 

“This is the illustrious friend of our queen? The cunning and adaptable spellsword? Peak of Direnni martial capability? You, sir, look like a refugee,”.

I was going to enjoy killing her.

“I can strike you with lightning as proof if that would make you feel better, Watch Captain,” Apparently no experience I had had in either life was going to allow me to be polite to her. Not after that introduction. 

She frowned, “The queen has yet to arrive with her council, you were supposed to be the first to arrive, I will send you to the barracks to get...cleaned up. I suppose one of the guards could provide you with a spare uniform as well. As you were originally supposed to be joining us as a security attache I may have a matter that would benefit from your attention afterwards,”. 

A matter that I was going to gladly kill her over in fact, the matter of her setting up a fall guy for her attempt at assassinating the queen. 

With no small amount of arrogance to my manner, as if I were the one dismissing her not the other way around, I waved for the guard to follow and when he hesitated I demanded, “Well then? To the barracks, man!” 

He started in surprise and immediately followed my order. 

Some level of rank and privilege was admittedly rather nice, I decided. 

The guard uniform, I admitted to myself fifteen minutes later as I was laying it out to change after a rather rustic style bath I was having prepped for myself, would be a possibly useful thing, maybe even allowing me to skip that silly portion of the quest where I had to get a uniform from some shopkeeper. 

“Go see if the Bosmeri delegation has any Jaqspurs along,” I commanded my lackey, the guard from earlier, “If they have any Wardens ask them if they have any spare avian totems for me. I require one for a spell, be back by the time I am done bathing,”

This time he took off without any prompting. Perhaps if he continued to be useful I would learn his name. 

Name...Jephre’s moldy tome, I had no idea what name my wife would end up with when she came to this universe. Or when, though that admittedly made the choice of Altmer better for us. Luckily I would have picked Altmer even if that achievement had been seen at the start of my character creation, because her first and favored character in Skyrim was an Altmer mage. I was certain that given a blank slate she would go such a route again. Mayhaps I would find her in the Mage’s Guild or when I progress the world-state maybe she would be at the Crystal Tower in the Summerset expansion? 

I would simply have to keep an eye out, she’d likely try to keep some distinguishing features. Which I admittedly probably should have done as well, though again, I had not known at the start that anyone would be joining me. And as an Altmer the only features from life I could have kept would have been my eyes. 

I pulled at a long strand of straight silver hair as I prepared to dunk a bucket of water over my head and soak it through. I missed my curls. 

Pushing such vain and depressing thoughts from my mind I finished scrubbing off all the salt and sweat and grime of the shipwrecking and by the time I had finished strapping in place the final buckle of the reinforced leather armor I had been given...hmm I’ll call him Philbert for now, Philbert was back.

“Uh...they said something about an osprey a trainee had obtained?” He babbled out as he handed a small soul stone on a leather cord to me.

I raised an eyebrow.

“Uh...sir?”

I arched it higher.

“Uh...I don’t suppose you have a rank in the Order, my lord?” 

I took the stone from his hands, “Riteseeker Dyrian of the last Ayleid House of Fyrre thanks you for your service, guardsman,”. 

He gulped, nodded, bowed after realizing he had just nodded, and then scurried off.

Ah, Philbert, I mused, always good for a chuckle. 

I slipped the stone over my neck and underneath my armor. 

I had the component I needed to utilize the first of the Animal Companions spells, Dive. Useful, long range, quick, and very spammable. Now I supposed the sword and dagger combination I had from the Maormer would suffice until I could get a nice Shock-typed Destruction Staff. 

This all in mind, I took off to find the queen’s would-be killer. I was going to have to play along and put my improv training to the test. 

Oddly enough Deception wasn’t an added skill so far as I could tell, or I likely would have gotten some kind of bonus from a decade of acting you would think. 

“Watch Captain Astanya,” I greeted in a monotone as I found her in the city’s main crossroad square which led to either the gate, the palace, or the marketplace.

“Riteseeker,” She flatly responded, “In preparation for the queen’s arrival I have some security checks that must be made. Unfortunately myself and all my officers are overladden so I thought that as Queen Ayrenn’s future...what was your position to be?”

“Arcane Security Attache with her bodyguard service,” I replied equally flatly, not willing to play this part of her game at least. 

“Yes, that. Regardless there are some possible weak points in our net. Advisor Norion said something about a break-in and Steward Eminwe was complaining about suspicious packages, do take care of that if you do not mind,”. 

I gave an overdramatic bow, “Anything in the name of the safety of my friend, the queen, I shall handle them both promptly,”. 

My response seemed to disgruntle her, she likely wished for me to take offense openly.

But as my grandmother in my first life said, and oddly enough my mother in this new one apparently had a similar phrase, “Don’t get mad, get even,”.

I wasn’t sure if weird game logic and quest mapping would apply, but I decided to take care of the burglar first. Not just because if game logic applied I couldn’t turn in the poisoned meat until I did this part anyways, but also because if game logic did NOT apply I would run the risk of giving the burglar time to escape. 

Speaking of how great foreknowledge was perhaps in-universe the Psijic skills would be more useful to me than they had been in game? Though the next useful one was possibly gated behind the portals beginning to appear. At least Time Stop seemed to not be quite as magically intensive as I had worried. I had not run any tests but it had only felt like a third of my reserves as opposed to over half the way the nerf-patch had made it after a bunch of people whined about its effects exclusively upon the PVP environment in Cyrodiil. 

My internal monologue had covered the time it took me to get across the beach to the warehouse Norion was waiting for someone at.

“Advisor Norion?” I questioned, and then as he turned to look at me I introduced myself, “Riteseeker Dyrian Fyrre, Arcane Security Attache for the queen, at your service. The Watch Captain told me there was some kind of break-in?”

The high strung elf nodded and I fully admit to zoning out into autopilot as he droned on about the robbery.

“Absolutely, I shall take care of the situation immediately!” I quickly left the boorish advisor behind. 

Surely enough I arrived into the warehouse just in time to see the burglar get stabbed in the back. 

I fired off magicka I had pregathered but the blasted assassin was too quick even for the Dive-spell I essentially hip-fired off at...him? Her? I honestly forgot the exact identity of this assassin if there was one. Probably just a random Veiled Heritance killer, though that made the stealth and escape skills a bit concerning. 

Did I mention how much I hated this quest in life? Honestly so many of the cities in ESO were vibrant and fun.

Vulkhel Guard...was kind of boorish and empty. And the initial plot to the faction questline left much to be desired. Even if Ayrenn was one of the more interesting Dominion characters. 

“Burglar’s dead, found some documents, I’ll take them to Astanya, just go...do whatever it is you do,” I brushed past the advisor very quickly fully confident that I would definitely never ever ever have to deal with him again and the rudeness would in no way ever have any possibility of biting me in the ass.

I kind of tuned out the steward as well once I arrived at the other warehouse. 

“Suspicious packages, I completely understand, I’ll let you know if I find anything,”. 

I made a beeline straight for the back corner I was fairly certain I remembered the correct one being in. I knew it wasn’t ever any of the front two with the marks. 

Let’s see, I may have actually ended up muttering that part under my breath, back...left? Yes left I think. 

I cracked open the marked crate in the back left corner and...dead rat. Definitely poisoned meat. 

I grabbed a handful and walked out, “Back left, super duper poisoned, take care of that I’m bringing this to the Watch Captain!” 

Treating semi-important members of the queen’s household and staff that only appear once in the game was definitely the way to go about this, absolutely never going to be any consequences here. 

I intellectually knew that I’d been very rude all day.

But as I hadn’t even gotten to sleep since waking up this morning from that shipwreck I could not bring myself to find even one iota of a fuck to place upon the altar of Auriel. 

“Poisoned meat in a suspicious box, and a weird letter on the burglar’s corpse, saw an assassin kill him, they got away though,” I slapped the evidence in front of my temporary nemesis. 

My mind was honestly starting to get a little fuzzy at this point from the exhaustion and lack of real sleep for the day, being unconscious and washing up on a beach does not in fact count. 

So I could probably be excused for attempting to speedrun this ridiculous quest.

“...named Fasion, if you could attempt to coax him out so we can arrest him it will be a great help,”. 

There we go, that was my cue. 

With a mocking salute I took off to find the small house he had boarded himself up in.

Knocking on the door I turned on my best charm, “Fasion! Buddy, pal, I hear Astanya out here wants to arrest you, but I, as personal Arcane Security Attache to the queen think this is all just one big misunderstanding, could you perchance let me inside?”

The door cracked open and I got yanked through the gap and it slammed back shut.

“Astanya’s going to-”

I held up a hand, “I know you fool! Is there a back entrance or chimney? We need to leave, now!” 

If this goes right I’m possibly going to blow this case out of the water, of course if it goes wrong-

My train of thought was promptly derailed by Astanya kicking the door down with a squad of her personally loyal guards.

“I had my suspicions of you, Ayleid,” She started scornfully, “I was planning to take care of you later, but as they say, two griffins one bolt. But what gave me away if I may ask?”

I rolled my eyes, of course this was happening a smidgen earlier than usual. 

“The pure oozing condescension in your voice really made you look suspicious to begin with, but it was the assassination of that burglar that pointed me towards you being one of those radical fools in the Fogged Estate...no wait Smokey Hand-me-downs?” 

Was taunting her the best idea? No, but it felt satisfying to see her go red.

“Veiled Heritance you impure bastard!” Her fist to my face either did a lot more damage than normal, I was more exhausted than I thought, or it was scripted because everything went black after that.


End file.
